
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, February 4, 1995                   TAG: 9502070016
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: B-6   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: BERCHTESGADEN, GERMANY                                LENGTH: Medium

U.S. RETURNS HITLER'S RETREAT TO GERMANY

Obersalzberg mountain, Adolf Hitler's Alpine retreat in southern Germany, was bombed by British forces in the final days of World War II before U.S. soldiers marched in to raise the American flag over the ruins.

Fifty years later, the U.S. Army is preparing to return Obersalzberg to the German government, which reluctantly agreed to take back the spectacular resort with a Nazi past.

German officials have long believed that the American presence on Obersalzberg helped to ensure that neo-Nazis did not make a shrine out of the Third Reich retreat where Hitler reportedly penned his fascist, anti-Semitic ``Mein Kampf.''

The German government was negotiating with the ``Amis'' to stay on until both sides announced last week that the deal had fallen through.

Located just above the castle town of Berchtesgaden, on the snowy Bavarian border with Austria, Obersalzberg served throughout the Cold War as one of a handful of recreation centers for hundreds of thousands of American forces stationed in Europe.

Hitler discovered the area after his release from prison for the unsuccessful putsch of 1923 and bought his Berghof house shortly after coming to power in 1933. He eventually enlarged the house and shared it with his mistress, Eva Braun.

Hundreds of locals were evacuated from the mountain, and members of Hitler's inner circle moved in: Nazi party chief Martin Bormann, Marshal Hermann Goering and Armaments Minister Albert Speer built summer houses; Bormann, for Hitler's 50th birthday, built the mountain's crowning jewel: the Eagle's Nest tea room at 6,000 feet.

Bormann had the whole area fenced off to outsiders, although thousands of Nazi supporters trekked up the hill daily on the chance they might catch a glimpse of the Fuehrer. During the war, Bormann also built a network of tunnels and air raid shelters for Hitler, who, as it turned out, was in Berlin when Obersalzberg was bombed.

by CNB